


All We Know

by Prince_Of_The_Night



Series: battle cry on your lips, army at your fingertips [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Kurosaki Ichigo/Inoue Orihime - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Unofficial Precursor to a Bleach Fic I Want To Write, it's just angst, that's all this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_Of_The_Night/pseuds/Prince_Of_The_Night
Summary: It's all he knows. So he asks for a second chance.





	All We Know

**Author's Note:**

> Oops

**All We Know**

* * *

 

At age 32, Ichigo Kurosaki stands tall and proud. This is his redemption, his second chance, the moment when he sees and knows and understands. He does not hate it. He hates the way he spent his life yes, but he does not hate his death.

At age 27, Ichigo Kurosaki kneels at his mother’s grave and does not cry. This is his condemnation, his final chance ruined, the moment when he realizes. He hates it. He hates himself for marrying a woman he can’t love right, for surviving, for the blood on his hands.

At age 24, Ichigo Kurosaki leads the Resistance in a turn-point battle, and then he marries Orihime because she tells him she’s been in love since they were 15. This is life, this war, and this is the only way he knows. He watches as Tatsuki dies and that hurts, and so does Chad’s death. A short, incomplete list of people he’s watched die, in the past eight years: Rukia, Renji, his sister Yuzu, his father, Jinta, Tessai, Shinji, his sister Karin, Hiyori, Rose, Love. ( ~~His hope.~~ )

At age 19, Ichigo Kurosaki watches best friends die. It happens in a raid, and it takes Rukia and Renji, and it almost takes him too. Another raid happens, only two days later and this time it takes his sisters, his father, and then it has the gall to take Yoruichi. He doesn’t know if they can win the war anymore.

At age 15, Ichigo Kurosaki meets a dark haired girl named Rukia Kuchiki. She pulls him into her world and God, it’s brilliant and gorgeous and he loves it. He loves it, and then Rukia almost dies and the war starts. The war starts and it— it hurts him more than he expects when he doesn’t come home for weeks on end, kept behind by missions. It hurts him almost enough to make him quit when he comes home one day and Yuzu asks him where he’s been and why dad doesn’t care.

He can’t bare to tell her that he doesn’t think dad has cared about all that much for years.

At age 9, Ichigo Kurosaki sees a little girl out by the river. It’s cold and raining and he tries to be a hero. It’s cold and raining and his mother dies instead of him. She bleeds out, and he’s stuck under her rapidly cooling body, crying until he can’t anymore. He keeps crying even then, but it’s silent and it takes 23 years before he stops.

.

.

.

At age 32, Ichigo Kurosaki decides it’s enough. Orihime leaves for coffee with the other women from her office job, and he hunts down that old, out of the way candy shop. When he gets there, he can’t help but smile. Kisuke Urahara doesn’t look like he’s changed a day, still all geta and fans and irritating smiles.

“How can I help you today, Ichigo-kun?” Kisuke asks, ten-and-some years of war coating his voice in warm familiarity. Ichigo thinks this is the most he’s smiled in years.

“I want a second chance.” And God, is that the most honest he knows he’s been in months-turned-years.

“Oh? How so?” So Ichigo tells him and for all that it startles Kisuke, he still agrees to help. He leads Ichigo to a back room, lays him on the bed there, and soothes away any final worries.

“It’ll be fine, you’ll see,” Kisuke promises him and Ichigo finally releases his grip on his arms. He relaxes back against the mattress and nods, closing his eyes. The older man presses a kiss to his forehead and, feeling like a child again, he drifts away.

On October 14th in the year 2017, Ichigo Kurosaki dies at age 32 and hopes for a second chance.


End file.
